Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I love that I scheduled almost every Tuesday off for the rest of the year! Frosted Designs sketch challenges keep me busy and challenged. I'm still sticking to my goal to finish last year's Christmas pictures and so far, so good. This pic is part of the Disney Cruise album. We went at a time when the terminal was just being decorated for Christmas. This beautiful tree was the first thing we saw when we got off the escalator. :)

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Sketchy Thursdays offered this great sketch for a 5x7 photo. I noticed most of my pictures have a lot of gold in them. This gold embossed paper by Anna Griffin is just too gorgeous! The stars and medallions were a sweet score from Michael's last night. :)

We are heading out to see the new Harry Potter movie today! Have a great evening! :)

It's hard to believe that this trip was a year ago! We had such an amazing time! And the best (or not so best) part is that I still haven't finished scrapping all of the pictures. So every now and then I get to relive the best parts of the trip.

Here is a project from a Stuck??! sketch.

I misted the background paper a little bit. I used my latest border punch to make "waves" and then tucked the laser title into them a bit. All of the Disney elements are actually tattoos that the kids had gotten in their goodie bags. I was surprised at how well they turned out on the page....total experiment! My Mickey didn't turn out so well...I didnt' realize how transparent they really were. He should have gone on a white background first. Oh well...next time...there are still plenty of pictures to work with!

I have to admit, the best part of working on this page was finally getting to use an old Reminisce kit! I really really really had to have this whole collection....and there it sat....in the corner...for a couple of years....

Well, I decided to dust it all off and put it to good use. And then...half way through the page, I realized how many other things needed dusting off.

I have a whole drawer filled with slide mounts. When they were popular, I had to have them in every color available.

The adorable animals peeking out of the slide mounts are from Jolee's, way back when...

I inked up some Thickers letters for the title.

Also added were some buttons and a few pieces of jute and a few strips of crepe paper.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

This sketch is from Sassy Lil' Sketches. I had all the squares cut and measured last week. Then it was another day or two for me to decided how to distress them all. I used a few different patterns from my Fiskars embossing templates. The papers were from Core'dinations, so after they were embossed, they were sanded down to show off the color core.

All of the stickers were from Bo Bunny. :)

I'm asking Santa for more buttons... I *heart* buttons!

I'm also entering this into this week's challenge from Frosted Designs, which was to use a distressing technique.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Our village has an annual parade throughout the neighborhood gathering donations for our local food pantry. It's put together by our police department and our church. We meet outside the church, dressed in our scariest and wait for our escort. His name is BOB and he is an 8 foot zombie...lol. We were also supposed to be escorted by an antique hearse, but they never showed up. :(

Before we even left the church, the neighbors came out and donated tons of food! We didn't even get started and everything here was already collected.

Bob finally made his way to the church (zombies aren't really fast movers), and we started our parade. Everyone came out to hand off donations to the police officers. To make the parade more fun for the kids, we had a scavenger hunt. We were given a list of the award winning scariest decorated houses and we had to find them. Once we got to the houses, there were candy and goodies for the kids, along with a huge donation for the cause. We had an amazing time! The kids didn't even realize how many miles we walked. The only downside was when the rain came. But even that didn't stop us! Zombies still walk in the rain too!

Afterwards, the church had a little reception for all the parade participants. Neighbors donated juice and home baked goods for everyone. It was a really fun time and all for a good cause!

This picture was featured in our local newspaper. :)

The sketch is from Sketches in Thyme this week. Whenever I see circles, I always think water pages...I don't know why. But I didn't have any, so it took me a while to put something together. This was all done with a hodge podge of goodies from the Halloween box. I printed out the title myself and tore and inked it up.

I love playing along with all the challenges at Frosted Designs! I was so happy when they started having sketch challenges! For the first challenge, my page made Top 3! I proudly display my new badge on the left!

Sketch #2 was just as much fun! I used lots of bits and pieces from Cloud 9 kit I found at Joann's.

I added a few buttons, paper flowers and some ric rac. I also dabbled in a little bit of misting on some of the pieces.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Can you tell by my layouts that I LOVE taking tons of pictures of butterflies? I usually go to the Butterfly Festival and the Butterfly Garden at the zoo every year. They are the most cooperative animals ever! And when the sun is shining...they perform and show off so much. They are so beautiful!!!

So I used yet another 5 x 7 picture for this beautiful sketch from Stuck on U Sketches. I'm not sure I like my cluster of flowers. I kinda used a hodge podge of everything I found in my flower drawer.

The patterned papers and the butterflies pieces are all from Basic Grey's Ambrosia collection. The big one is a chipboard piece and the smaller ones were cut from the patterned papers. I used pop dots on them to give them dimension. Again, my lousy picture taking abilities doesn't show that so well.

I used an 8 inch doily for behind the picture. I used Tim Holtz distressing inks on the whole thing. :)

The title was put together with the very few letters I have left over from Basic Grey Chocolate Chip alphas.

I'm just happy that I was able to put this whole page together using old goodies!! When they pictures came in the mail, my first thought was YEAH!! I get to go shopping!!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Let's start with this great sketch from Sketchy Thursdays! I didn't have 3 pictures to work with so I decided to add a shaker box for the third spot. I used some corn that I had...umm..."borrowed"... from the corn pit. Actually, I think it was found in the kids' pockets and shoes when we got home. The fibers behind the shaker box were taken from a piece of fabric I used on a previous page. The "raffia" is strips of paper that I had crinkled up and inked myself. I added a few pieces of corn to the centers. The letters are Chocolate Chip from Basic Grey. The background piece in the center is DCWV. A little bit of tearing and inking on the photo mats...

I had so much fun!

The title was inspired by a challenge from Scrap Whispers. The challenge was to create a project using a title from a favorite scary movie. It's hard to think scary looking at these two cuties! But when I was flipping through the pictures, these jumped out at me immediately!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

This was inspired by the sketch for the Guest Designer Spot at Sketchy Thursdays. This was soooo difficult!! Quite the challenge! The hardest part was finding pics that could be cut to the right size and shape.

I used a misted doily for behind the pics. I also added some miscellaneous flowers and buttons. :)

Playing along with The Hippity Hop Blog Hop this weekend! All the info can be found down below this post! Enjoy! This was fun and challenging!

For the recipe I used:

3 different kinds of ribbons

I also used 3 different sized butterflies

embossing on some of the squares,

then I inked them up to show the embossing

lace ribbons

and of course, the great sketch!

The Hippity Hop is a recipe challenge hop. It starts right here, right now and ends at 9 P.M. on Sunday, November 14th. You'll need to visit each challenge blog. You will get an element at each of the 5 blogs, Sassy Lil' Sketches (you are here), Scrap Fit, Crop Suey, Scrap Tiffany and The Cuttlebug Spot. Using the elements create a layout or card and post it to all 5 blogs for a chance to win up to 5 times.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

This week's challenge from Frosted Designs was to use large photos on your page. 8 x 10 photos are the hardest for me to work with because there isn't much room left to do anything. And of course, all the photos I have can't really be cut down any smaller. That's the problem with professional photos when they add their own mats.

I crumpled up my background paper a bit and swiped an ink pad across it.

Then I took the photo mat (the light colored one), tore the edges, sanded them a bit, and inked them up.

I love this fish netting stuff and I really need to add it to the shopping list!

Here was another sketch challenge from Sketches4All. Love the way this all came together! The background paper is Scenic Route from the stash. I just got the ZVA leaf bling in the mail today from A Cherry on Top! I was so excited!! It took me about 30 seconds to get it out of the mailbox, out of the package and onto the page! All the flowers are miscellaneous stuff from the stash. :)

Such a pretty sketch at Sketches in Thyme this week! I so wish i had more flower photos that worked with it! I cannot wait till Spring! Right...because I just don't have enough other stuff to work on....riiiighhttt..

I did a little distressing on the mat for the photos. The pattern flowers are from Imaginisce. They were black and white so I sprayed them with Glimmer Mist to give them a little color.

The stickers are from K&Company and all the ribbons are from the stash.